some thoughts on message weight

[sigmaleph]

i spend possibly way too much time thinking about the... weight, let's call it, of things I say (it's a bad name for it but i don't have a better one at the moment)

some of this is correlated with length. short statements are on average lighter than longer statements. if i'm complaining about a random pain or having slept poorly, this is pretty 'light'; if i am writing an analysis of a complicated abstract concept, this is 'heavy' (this post is heavy)

heaviness is an important factor of where i say things, and different platforms seem to have a different minimum weight. I'm more than happy to spout any complaints about my day when IMing my partners, bits of wordplay feel about right for my mastodon, trying to explain the inner workings of my mind or just my opinion on some bit of media is right for dreamwidth. while none of those have a maximum weight, heavier stuff that is not prompted by something someone else said goes on my blog by default (because it gives me more time to organise my thoughts). obviously privacy concerns and social groups and so on also matter re: where i post something, etc.

from the inside, minimum weight feels like i'm wasting people's time by posting banalities they don't care about if i talk about a papercut on my blog. i am an anxious person and saying things feels too much like asking for attention for me to be able to do it freely. (you'll notice i am only talking about saying things over the internet. talking irl is a whoooole other minefield)

at some point my brain decided dreamwidth has a higher minimum weight than tumblr, which is a problem because i don't make original posts on tumblr any more except via crossposting (some exceptions apply). mostly i overcome this by either telling my brain to shut up or by using mastodon more. or i fail and stay silent, that's also a thing that happens.

on reflection this is related to the thing i talked about earlier re: when i feel like i have to switch to actually using capitalization. indeed this post is long enough it deserves to be capitalised but i am rebelling against my aesthetic standards.